It's Snow Awful...but it's not the snow.

Last night I went to bed super early, since I have been burning my end with two candles for the past couple/few weeks. Very little of that time has been spent actually doing productive things, though. A little extra time making a blanket here, more time watching anime on the dvr there. Homework? When I absolutely must, but really no sooner.

I woke up bright and early and decided to make coffee, which I seldom do. Six or seven inches of snow fell last night, and I figured that with the drive to school almost guaranteed to blow goats, it would be sensible to be awake for the experience.

You know, I have been making coffee for years now, and you would think that I would have it down to a science. That would be a false assumption, however. For some reason I make coffee as though I hate myself.

I lost count while doling out teaspoons of coffee into the filter, and somehow managed to make a generic espresso gel, which a cup of will doubtlessly keep me awake for the next month. Of course, I had several. There are several true and awful stories floating around my circle of friends which serve as testimony to my unwillingness to dump out even the most heinous brew, and today is no exception.

The only upshot is that I was able to fob off one large mug to the guy who plowed out my car this morning. I don't hate him, but you would think so based solely on the fact that I gave him coffee.
Maybe it's karma for something he did in a past life. If that's the case, then justice has been served. In a mug.

Getting to the Bottom of Things

I posted this one one Myspace on Nov 21, 2008. I know! This year, even!
There may be some other old blogs and postings that I come across, which I will post if I get to it. Heaven knows that I have written enough and I like to have it all in one spot, rather than five or more random spots with too many passwords for me to remember comfortably.
Anyhoo...

Today, while cleaning, I noticed something which disturbed me and I feel the need to share. Be warned, for this is not a topic for the faint of heart. I was picking up my laundry and I noticed a camisole which seemed unfamiliar to me. It was wadded up a little bit, and I bent over to pick it up.

That was when I made The Discovery. This was no camisole. This was a PAIR OF UNDERWEAR. I cannot describe to you the abject horror which pierced my soul as I took a good long look at my Granny Panties, for Granny Panties is the only word which could possibly describe them. They were gigantic, a veritable sail's worth of material. A pair of underwear which could conceivably be cut up and turned into somewhere between five and seven thongs. Which could cover a teenager from shoulders to kneecaps. Which could....which could be the reason why I'm not getting any.

At what point did this happen? When did I become the woman who buys her underwear in a six pack? Why didn't I notice? When did I put my sexuality on the altar of comfort and slit it's throat? I mean, it obviously happened, but why didn't I notice it?

I have been thinking a lot about it, though, since The Discovery. I have come to realize a few differences in my life since my shift into the second of the two great eras of a woman's life: Before Granny Panties and After Granny Panties. I'm comfortable. I am no longer fighting the war of attrition between my butt crack and an overly inquisitive piece of fabric. Granny Panties glue to the backside in such a way that this sort of rabid curiosity is impossible. I win. Granny Panty Elastic, try though it might, cannot pull random hairs from an area which does not appreciate the element of surprise. I cannot say the same thing for my previous sexy looking panties which would pluck anywhere from one to four hairs daily.

So maybe I shouldn't cry foul just yet. I know that in the halcyon days of my youth I swore that I would never ever EVER wear Granny Panties. Ever. But when I was in kindergarten, I think I said the same thing about eating paste.

Morning Thought

Oct 15 2005

Listerine: Prison rape in your mouth.

Maybe a Bit More Sleep Is In Order

Oct 15 2005

I caught myself in the process of putting deodorant on my toothbrush.

I'm amused by the porn subject lines in my inbox (sexy baby and bad erection).

I'm beginning to think I should have gotten up even earlier.

I'm almost enjoying the flavor combination of orange Listerine and my beet flavored organic toothpaste (This is a total lie. Combined, they taste much like the pall of the grave...with a citrusy tang.).

I'm wondering what I should go as for Halloween this year. I'm tired of being a witch, a devil, or wearing black vinyl. Well, I still like wearing black vinyl, but I'm tired of it being my standard Halloween costume, capice?

Suggestions are welcome, because if I'm trying to brush my teeth with Secret Invisible Solid, I might not be in the best mental position to make a decision this important.

Lovies!

Note To Self

Jun 9 2005

Stop with the prunes.

I mean, really.

Don't you remember the last time?

You know, when you were chained to the toilet for about 3 hours?

When you peed, except it was brown and came from your butt?

Don't make me tell you again.

Laundry and Other Small Miracles

Nov 2005
I got up and began to fold laundry. To my amazement, there were an even number of socks in the basket and....wait for it....THEY ALL MATCHED!

I know, I can feel your fits of envy. I had no missing sock, or, worse in my opinion, none of the changeling socks, which at one point may have looked like every other sock in your laundry, but now is the wrong color, shape and/or texture, as though strangers have been coming into your house while you're working and doing their laundry. You don't know this sock, dammit. Where did it come from? Usurper sock.

Mister Manners on Halloween

Oct 30 2005
Last night, a guy came up to me and said."Great titties!" (My Halloween costume showed an abundance of boobage.)

A male friend of mine, upon overhearing this, turned to me and said,"That guy shouldn't have said that. He should have said,"Great CLEAVAGE!", because it means the same thing, but sounds a whole lot nicer."

An FYI

Nov 12 2005

It's impossible to take yourself seriously when you go to the bathroom at work and realize that you had put your underwear on backwards before leaving the house that morning.

Not seriously.

Not once.

All day.

Color of the Day

Jan 04, 2006

The color of the day is brown. Yes. I said brown. This is the day when you wear shirts and sweaters and pants in a futile attempt to impersonate the UPS dudes.

You only eat brown stuff. Chocolate has no calories today. Drink all the root beer and cola you want...no burping. Brown is a magical color today, and it will make you more attractive to the opposite sex, smarter, faster, funnier, and will slip you the winning lottery numbers when the jackpot is really high.

I am personally eating a combination of maple and BROWN sugar oatmeal, chocolate covered raisins, and Cocoa Krispies....without milk. In this instance I would be able to use milk, because it would TURN brown, but I'm really too lazy to walk to the gas station at the other end of the block to get some. So it's Krispies al dente for me.

Later tonight I'll be burning...I mean cooking dinner...which will definitely involve (canned) potatoes and some kind of meat. The beauty of this day is that things that TASTE brown can also be involved...and since whatever I cook tends to taste like corrugated cardboard, I'm golden! ( I mean, golden brown.)

Toast...all day you can eat acres of toast....with brown sugar. If you use anything else on your toast, the whole day is rendered invalid, and you will score double calories for any food you looked at.

Now I feel like I have turned this into one of those irritating chain letters...always with some dumb catch. And therefore, I feel better!

Have a brownie!

Today

Jan 26, 2006

Today I will drink tea and eat oatmeal.
Don't even try to stop me.
I will primp.
I will listen to Sirius Coffee Shop on my computer and sing along with every word.
I will question authority...even if it's my authority.
I will smile at everyone...and tell them exactly what's on my mind anyway.
I will go to the zoo and sunbathe through my car windows.
I wanna.
I will.

The Horrifying Truth

April 06, 2006

Yesterday I bought a pack of Dubble Bubble bubble gum, something which I hadn't chewed since I was oh...about ten years old. I noticed that they still have the little comics printed, much like Bazooka Joe, around the gum.

Upon closer review, I noticed that most of the comics revolve around the life of a litle boy. And what would his name be, you ask?

Pud.

Personally, I'm thinking about immortalizing it with a tattoo or something. The joy I feel has no words.

M-Azing

April 11. 2006

Am I the only person who is utterly creeped out by M-Azing candy bar commercials? I mean, call me a prude, but the notion of two candy bars humping before I eat them is personally repellant.

M-Azingly icky.

Toys

When this blog says "recently," it actually means May of 2006. Sorry!

Recently, Ness posted a blog commenting about the toys of our childhood. I, being a slacker, didn't leave a comment until I was verbally beaten about the head and neck for not posting. I told her that I would torture her with something , and I feel that I have succeeded. As a matter of fact, I was so proud of the level of torment I threw at her, that I decided to share it with all of you.

Yes, I can tell that you are awed by my unadulterated goodness.

So here begins my post about my personal favorite childhood toys:

This is an absolute no-brainer.STAR WARS ACTION FIGURES!!!

My God, what would my brothers and I have done all year long if it weren't for those little pieces of plastic that held all of us in such a trance. We would pile fallen pine needles into stages, corridors, whatever it took to give us an excuse to have some kind of conflict that could only be solved by a battle royale between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker.

We would dress the part, too, in the winter, with my hair pinned into giant croissants placed with care just above my ears, in a white nightgown, my eldest brother wearing a long scarf tied in a knot as a sash, trying to do the weird growly noise (which, to this day, is the easiest way for any man to impress me. To do the Chewbacca growl is the epitome of assured masculinity and virility in my eyes.) and look as though he would indeed tear out an arm and beat you with it.

My other two brothers were Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, respectively...although it never did come to blows, to my obviously understandable dismay. I was Leia, dammit, and I wanted some BLOOD!

And where would the world be without WEEBLE WOBBLES? Man I loved me some Weeble Wobbles. Especially the little tree house play set with the slidey slide. God, hours of fun in the back yard on the sand pile.I could actually go on for a lot longer, because, really, I grew up in like the Golden Age of toys, if you ask me...From Hot Wheels to Mr Potato Head to Etch-A-Sketch.

We didn't have Candy Land, but my cousins did, and so we would go to their house and play games over there....Candy Land, Chinese Checkers, Monopoly (where began the lifetime of hatred I feel for that game), Superman, and, of course, War. Not the card game. I hated playing war with my family, hated it with an all consuming passion. This had nothing to do with my purely pacifist stance in conflict, but, rather, reflected my earliest encounters with gender stereotyping. I was a girl, so I had to be the nurse.

For those friends of mine who are indeed, nurses, this may not seem like such a terrible thing, but to me in my 5-9 year bloodlust, this was tantamount to being horsewhipped with barbed wire. There is no thing on earth that I think could possibly compare with the boredom of waiting for my brothers and cousins to get tired, and play wounded so they could get a little rest so that I could play, too. Wow, that sounded so sad. *sniff* But really, it was what it was, and I didn't hate it too terribly or I would have found something else to do.

Little Golden Books...need I say more? I loved them with a passion that wouldn't die. I think I knew I read too much when I hit about age 11 and my mom would yell at me to get out of my room and get my nose out of a book. If I was particularly bad (which occasionally I was, believe it or not), she would threaten to burn all of my books. At that point, she usually got me to heed her.

There is, however, a penultimate toy that we all had as children, and it's one that you really don't run into that often any more, and I think it's a shame. In this world of PS2, Xbox, and portable dvd players so little kids don't get bored while Mom is driving to the store, the toy that I notice as missing more and more often is a very simple one. It's called "imagination". I don't think that we, as adults and children, take enough time to turn off the tv, pause the computer game, go outside, and play games of "What If?."

I think there is something to be said for the ability for people to ENTERTAIN THEMSELVES. When I was young, I heard that only boring people get bored, and really I do hold this to be truth. I notice that as I age, I think back most fondly on the simpler things that I enjoyed. I remember "Pong" like it was yesterday, but better than that I remember the little arrow plants my brothers and I would pick and throw at each other while playing "Chiefs."

I think that if "imagination" was something that was sold in a box or a bag,I would love to buy all of us some.
Lovies!

Trick or Whatever

Halloween-time
You can really tell sometimes, when people are related. Sometimes they look alike, have a similar personality quirk (Tourette's, maybe?), or beat a much loved phrase into the proverbial dirt.
My mother and I have something in common, something which I am convinced surpasses mere habit, but is something carved into the core, the essence, the very fiber of our communal beings.
We hate trick-or-treaters.
Don't get me wrong. We both love Halloween. The costumes, the morbidity (all right that might be a smidge more me), the chocolate in very very big bags.
But the trick-or-treaters? Not so much. Even less than that, actually.
We're cold blooded and lazy. Don't come and knock on our door and beg for candy. It's not a commercial. Don't you see that there's a cat on my lap? I'm on the computer. Go away.
I don't think that children exist that are "precious" enough for me to give a flying never-mind about (and if you think I really mean to say never-mind, you have another thing coming), and get off my soft, comfy couch for. Buy your own candy, Mom and Dad. You cheap so-and so's.
To alleviate the problem of the trick or treaters in this village (it's literally too small to be classified as a town), Mom and I have come to a conclusion.
We're skipping town.
While small children run around getting razored apples, poisoned candy, and frostbite, Mom and I intend to be shopping, or having a bite to eat in a cozy restaurant.
Stop. I can feel your palpible envy.
Lovies!!!!

Rant Down Memory Lane

I literally jumped up and RAN to the computer to tell you all what I have been doing.
Not because I just got in the door from my exciting European vacation where I was French kissed by an Italian man while he was driving a ridiculously expensive German car.....sigh.....but because I was just annoyed all to hell and will share.

I have an open plea to the people who made the video for Johnny Cash's song, "God's Gonna Cut You Down": If you don't know how to make a good video, throw away that ridiculously expensive video equipment.

This is supposed to be a video, people, not a fucking iPod commercial.

I notice that it's apparently not necessary to have a message or a "story" in videos anymore, probably because a bunch of jackasses standing around lipsynching and trying to look relevant is so much cooler.

Wake up, you stupid fucking sheep. You're not offering respect to Johnny Cash by posing for the camera, trying to prove what fans you are. You're looking like a bunch of bandwagon jumping assholes instead.

At the end of it all, do what you want. Just realize that you (this is the collective "you" that encompasses every single person in that damn video) look like an asshole. In case you were wondering why you were smiling vertically.

[...seethe...seethe....seethe...]

All right, I'm feeling a bit less hostile and morally offended...on to other things.
___________________________

In slightly related news.....I just saw the trailer for Spider Man 3, and I have to say that I can't wait.

It's not so much that I just love the movies, although that is true. It's the comic books that the movie represents.

I'm an old school comic book geek...from Spiderman (I remember the Venom story line from the start, how about you?), to X-Men (not just Dark Phoenix, but the Logan and Kitty Pryde in Japan story line), The New Mutants ( which had the misfortune of being subscribed to by me, sealing in the series' doom), Ambush Bug (same fate), Atari Force (same fate), and, my unabashed favorite as a pubescent girl...Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld (same fate).
You may have noticed, had you been perusing my perenthesis (cheeky bugger!), anytime I seek a constant source of my drug of choice, they get shut down (after four tries, I learn!). For this reason, I am more of a fringe dweller now.

However, my oldest brother loves me and gives me a dose every now and again. For Christmas, many many years ago he gave me the "V" for Vendetta series. I was thrilled to see the movie version, because it brought back all the wonder and horror I felt when I read it wayyy back in the day.

A few years ago: The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman. This series (Which I have in comic book form, but is also available in a graphic novel, if I'm remembering right) is fantastic.

I was about to write up a little synapsis, but it could only be damaged by my feeble attempts to describe it. I do however have some useless trivia about it. The character Delerium (who used to be Delight) is based on Tori Amos. I feel that that is a selling point in and of itself.

While I was at the library last week, I came across "Pop Gun War", which was a lovely little graphic novel, well worth the time it took to read.

I woulds also like to mention the thicker, scarier comics that decorated my childhood...Eerie and Creepy.

These comic books MESSED ME UP when I was a little kid, full of gore and horror, by introducing me to the idea that you don't have to do anything wrong for bad things to happen to you.

Just walk into a disco at the wrong time. A handsome man comes up and asks you to dance, and in the midst of the dance, you notice his large, unusually carved gold medallion starting to glow. Transfixed, you cannot look away, although you feel weaker, lighter, strange.......and *thwoop*
You realize, vaguely, that you are laying on the dance floor. The veil of illusion falls from your eyes, and you see things as they really are. The throngs of other dancers are wearing dark robes; eyes glowing under the strobe light. The handsome man now seems frightening...his strong animal magnetism stripped away, you see that his compelling face now has the eyes of a goat.

You notice glowing lines on the dance floor, like a hex sign you saw when you were a little girl on your Grandparent's farm....so long ago.....and then you see the glint of a knife....and all goes dark.

The moral of the story? The rhythm is gonna get you.....for real.

Yeah, I remember those stories....and the nightmares that went with them. I know it warped my childhood mind, and I'm grateful for that to this day.

Anyhoo, I have to run.

Lovies!

I didn't know that boredom was a primal emotion

Jan 2007

Tonight my friend Dave and I tried to go to the movie Primeval.

Big mistake.

"Why Jess, what happened?" you might ask in your head, not really because you are interested, but because I'm putting out a bland, obviously opening statement and you are afraid that if you don't do the polite thing and ask, I will try to bring this subject up another ten or twelve times, until you finally succumb to my will. Why not save yourself the anguish and just ask me right away?

Your assumption is, of course, quite astute. Thanks for shaving some awkward vocal finnegalling off this blog. I will tell you what I thought of this movie in one word:

Crap.

In two words:

Total crap.

In a couple of poorly structured sentences:

This movie was so poor that we asked the ushers if we could go watch other movies, movies which had started more than a half hour ago. When we were told that the other movies had started more than a half hour earlier, I said, "Well, at least they aren't Primeval."

No joke.

This is the risk that people run when they see a scary looking poster, but no trailers of the movie. Blindly looking for a scary movie, but being shafted by a close-mouthed studio, which must have known that no one in their right mind would go to a movie about an alligator on the Rwandan border, much less think that it's actually scary.

I can appreciate the fact that this movie is based on a true story, but I have to say that I haven't been scared by a damn alligator movie since I was seven or eight and they had that movie with the alligator that was flushed down the toilet and ended up tearing up New York (or whatever big town it was...I was sevenish, what do you want from me?).

Anyhoo, after seeing 20 minutes of Primeval, we couldn't stomach sitting through any other movie either, so we left and walked a few blocks to Book World.

Dave picked up "The Guiness Book of World Records 2006", while I picked up "100 Marvels of the Modern World", of which I have seen a grand total of one. I had best get my butt in gear.

I'm a happy booker

Jan 2007

As I mentioned in my last blog, I picked up a lovely book tonight: "100 Marvels of the Modern World".

And, as I also mentioned in the last posting, I have seen exactly one of said wonders in real life.

For anyone who is interested, that one Marvel of the Modern World is the Westward Arch in St. Louis, Missouri. I have seen it a few times, but I only have pictures from when Bean and I went, about a dozen years ago. I'm all right with this, but really, I had better get it in gear for the other ninety-nine.

Anyhoo, jotting down this little tidbit made me realize just how long it has been since I have done a book report, and heaven knows that I haven't stopped reading since then.

I have, however, slowed down quite a bit, because I have been filling my days with plenty of senseless tasks which make me happy (although I should really put laundry back up on that list, because otherwise I will have to set my clothes on fire to stop the spread of the Plague), such as Sudoku...because regular logic problems weren't twisting my noodle quite enough.

I can tell when I have been doing a lot of logic problems and Sudoku because my grey matter seems to writhe in my skull much in the way of a live snake being doused in kerosene...or so I would assume. Anyway, less reading goes on while I play Flowers For Algernon with numbers. I'll be condescending (more) to you all in no time.

Here is a very small selection of the books I have been reading over the last month or so; some I have started, some I have finished, and some will decorate my bookshelf for a few more months before I dig them out and devour them. This is by no means a definitive list.

American Sideshow: An Encyclopedia of History's Most Wondrous and Curiously Strange Performers by Marc Hartzman

This book is pretty interesting, with some great black and white photographs and short biographies of many famous (or infamous) sideshow performers.

The truly valuable thing that I learned from this book is that there were a HELL of a lot of bearded ladies.

I can now stop shaving my mustache with nary a sense of regret, and be Jess-Jess the Dog Faced Girl with little or no trouble. Maybe I'll find a nice family to feed me and pick up my frighteningly copious piles of dooky with an inside-out sandwich baggy.

Strange Attractions by Emma Holly

This book is porn! YAY! Its not too badly written...although completely unrealistic. That's all right though, because it's PORN!

How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe by Thomas Cahill

I haven't started reading this book yet, but I can tell you a bit of the concept behind it here: During the Dark Ages (from the fall of Rome to the rise of Charlemagne), learning, scholarship, and culture disappeared from most of Europe.

Ireland's monks were instrumental in saving the most important writings of European culture, and thereby put their own unique stamp upon Western culture and civilization.

While this is all very interesting, I would also like to point out that in the center of the book is a picture of a pagan diety pulling open her no-no place. I mention this is because I have a five-year-old's sense of propriety sometimes, and also because she is pulling so hard that her yoni looks bigger than her head.

Einstein's Daughter: The Search for Lieserl by Michele Zackheim

This book is about the search for Lieserl Einstein-Maric, the illegitimate daughter of famed physicist Albert Einstein.

The conclusion that is drawn about Lieserl, who was born in 1902 and disappeared in 1903, may seem a bit shocking, but upon closer inspection is likely the only rational explanation, considering the times in which Einstein (and his daughter) lived. This was a compelling read.

The Third 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said by Robert Byrne


This is a quote book, plain and simple.
While I am partial to quote books, I can't help but think that I have seen others which are done better than this one. The thing that I DO like about the book is the collection of line cut drawings which lurk amongst the quotes.

This book will likely suffer that penultimate of fates, being sliced to ribbons and used to line the pages of my photocollage journal.

Yes, I am all right with that.

Selected Poems by Kenneth Patchen

I have to admit that I have never heard of this guy before, but this poem, beginning on the bottom of page 84, was worth the price of admission to me:

"O My Darling Troubles Heaven with her Loveliness"

O my darling troubles heaven
With her loveliness
She is made of such cloth
That the angels cry to see her
Little gods dwell where she moves
And their hands open golden boxes
For me to lie in

She is built of lilies and candy doves
And the youngest star wakens in her hair
She calls me with the music of silver bells
And at night we step into other worlds
Like birds flying thought the red and yellow air
Of childhood

O she touches me with the tips of wonder
And the angels cuddle like sleepy kittens
At our side

~~~~~
I do have oodles more books to share, but I will call it a night.
Night!
Lovies!

This is why I should stop getting emotionally vested in anime

Feb 2007

Today I learned that drinking Amp'd energy drink causes moderate to severe hallucinations. I learned that by watching one of their commercials, the one where a guy [hereafter named Our Hero] takes a drink and begins hallucinating that he is being attacked by a ream-of-wadded-up-paper-demon.

Rather than spitting out the psychotropic beverage, our hero opts to take the road less travelled by forcing the paper demon into a shredder, assurably gaining many experience points for the next level of adventuring which must assuredly take place at our hero's crummy desk job.

One thing I noticed during this addle pated fever dream experienced by our hero was the total lack of used tissues within the demon dustbin. I found the lack kind of disturbing, actually.

If there had been tissues in the garbage can, that demon would have won. No one wants to touch ABC gum or post nasal drip oragami which a real waste basket would have certainly contained.

Not even our hero, intrepid, resourceful and tweaked out though he may be.

Just a thought.

There I go thinking again

Feb. 2007

In the living room there is a small bust of the face of Michaelangelo's David.

Yes, that David. But just his face....no little fig leaf to make you wonder what his business looks like.

The bust is kind of cool and all, and I'm all right with it being there and everything, staring at me from on top of the entertainment center.

The problem being that today I looked at him, and maybe it was the lighting, but he had this look of intense concentration, like he was trying really hard to grow a mustache.

FYI

February 2007

Tonight I went to Walgreens, on the premise of picking up some Rolaids for Laurie, hapless victim of one too many shots of Rumplemintz.

Of course, I had given up straight shots of Rumple years ago, because after the second shot you realize that the first shot is the biological equivilent of boric acid.
Any successive shot is just for spite.

Anyhoo, Laurie was fit to keel over from her tummyache, and as the sober one, I volunteered to run to the store.

While I was there, I noticed something which I thought I would share with all of you: Snickers Creme Sport Egg.

It's called this because it's a Snickers bar in the shape of half an egg, and there are soccer balls on the package.

I would like to point out to all those who could be confused by this label that this is not, in fact, an energy bar. I checked. More than once.

Okay, just the once, but I'm pretty confident that the results would be the same no matter how many Snickers Creme Sports Eggs I consume.

Cadbury Creme Eggs are also not sport related, but I had one of those just in case.